Masterpiece: Blades of Steel

Blades of Steel may have presented itself as a straight-up sports title, but …

Opening Blades of Steel on that long-ago Christmas morning, I was taken aback. I didn't care for hockey, I wasn't into sports, and it seemed so random. The next game I opened was Taboo, in fact, leading me to believe that my Grandmother selected games by going to Toys R Us, slamming a martini, and then throwing a dart.

Blades of Steel wasn't a hockey game as much as it was a theater of everything awesome about the NES. It was a cart that said its name when you turned it on. "Blades... of STEEL!" It didn't take crap from anyone. In a time before the difference between the arcade and simulation wasn't as important, Blades of Steel fell into a new category: badass.

Penalties are for losers

The game featured eight teams: four from the US, and four from Canada. It didn't make a lick of difference which one you picked, other than the color of the uniform. Each team had five players; you had to jam on the button during the face-off and pass to the player either above or below you, and then it was on. You had one button to pass, one to shoot, and that's all you needed. As the puck careened towards the goalie, you took control of that character to attempt to block the shot. It was a rush of a game, simple and brutal.

Outside of the actual voice announcing a few key moments such as face-offs and "hitting the puck," the game was filled with other genius touches that may not be true to the game of hockey, but they taught you about life. You could pick a fight at any time by hitting another player three times without touching anyone else, and then the camera zoomed in, the gloves came off, and you were brawling. You could throw a high or low punch, or block your opponent's blows. Here's where it got wonderful: the only person to suffer a two-minute penalty was the loser. Pick a fight, wipe the floor with your opponent, and you're in the middle of a power play. This game would not put up with the weak; it was Darwinism with sticks and fists.

Blades of Steel

Blam! Contra

During the second intermission, you could sometimes play a mini-game based on Gradius, which turned into an advertisement for other Konami games. "Blam! Contra. Blam! Jakal. What an exciting game. Fantastic Graphics. Awesome Music. ALL YOUR FRIENDS WILL WANT IT." Placing a playable commercial for games inside another game? A shooter in a sports game that tells how much your friends will be jealous of the other Konami games you own? Absolutely genius.

Blades of Steel was simple without being easy, and it was the magical game you played while growing up that could both cause and solve major fights. Many major life decisions were solved by games of Blades of Steel, and this compulsion only grew deeper as we grew older. It passes the bar test, as well. The next time you head into the pub, do yourself a favor and yell "Blades..." and then wait a moment. If you don't hear "OF STEEL!" screamed back at you, it's imperative that you turn around and find a better place to drink.

The penalty shots were another highlight. The camera moved behind the player, and you had to aim around the goalie, who had one chance to block the shot. Watching the puck go one way while the goalie committed to blocking in the wrong direction was always great, and even better was getting into your opponent's head during shoot-outs. "Okay, I promise this time.. I'm going high left." It felt like a game of rock-scissors-paper that all too often ended in real black eyes. Growing up, we fought if someone talked about our families or if someone insulted our Blades of Steel skills.

Often imitated, never matched, this is the best hockey game ever created. It was brought to the Virtual Console in 2007 and it felt like a victory lap. I played it again for an hour before writing this, and there are no rose-tinted glasses at play: it's still one of purest sports games available. So what if the only other penalty is for icing? So what if the players look like faceless monsters when fighting? This is hockey—are you going to play or are you going to whine about it?

Now, if only BaseWars and whatever the baseball game was where you had super powers, would be brought over to VirtualConsole, then my sports catalogue would be complete. Oh, for the days when sports games were *FUN* and not just league simulators.

This was a pretty awesome Nintendo game, and my friends and I played it all the time... but a masterpiece?

From the Article: "Here's where it got wonderful: the only person to suffer a two-minute penalty was the loser. Pick a fight, wipe the floor with your opponent, and you're in the middle of a power play."

Greatest hockey game ever? No. Greatest fights in a hockey game? Yes. When I played BoS I just wanted to get into fights, the actual game was an annoyance. NHL '94 or '95 for Genesis would get my vote.

I have been reading Ars for a couple years now, and absolutely had to register and post JUST FOR THIS GAME. Blades of Steel was freakin' awesome, and more than 20 years later I can remember the intro music like yesterday. BLADES OF STEEL!

I dominated on this game because I had a MAX controller (the one with a sliding disc instead of a d-pad, and turbo buttons for A&B). I think I singlehandedly caused the rest of my friends to beg their parents for a MAX for Christmas, just to get back on an even footing with me. Nothing like instant wins in fights just by holding my fist out and them running into it 3 times

Easily the best hockey game ever. Beats the crap out of that NHL 2011 junk EA spit out this year. And as a side note how is Modern Warfare a masterpiece?? That game was one of the worst COD titles released, only bested by Modern Warfare 2 as the worst COD game in the franchise.

I feel the same way about some of the original Need for Speed games. The latest version really don't even come close to the playability and out right fun of the originals. That and I still can't seem to get the same control over the car with a modern game pad as I did with an old fashion analog joystick.

And I'm reminded how much I hated the whistle in that game. I'll agree that it's a masterpiece and deserves recognition but out of all the audio files in the game that damnable *whistle, whistle-whistle" from the crowd was ear-splitting as a child and it continues today.

Ice Hockey by Activision, for the Atari VCS. It wasn't just pong with multiple paddles in a slightly different formation, it was an honest reduction of Hockey to its basic, savage elements. Fighting is delivered as a simple sweeping of the legs with the stick, but this simple animation can stand for so much animosity between brothers. The short single-screen field makes sure that players are always at the edge of clashing, and fight timing and positioning matters just as much as puck control. The stealing mechanic adds a whole 'nother angle to how you approach your opponent, and lets you constantly mix your play style.

There were few truly deep titles for the 128 byte beast, and Ice Hockey delivered one of the finest experiences available for generations of systems.

I don't remember how video games got popular way back when...but it seems like all my friends had this. The MW of the day, only it didn't suck over-hyped gritty balls. Ah - when popular games were good. /rant

This was a great NES hockey game, I enjoyed Ice Hockey probably a little more though. However, NHL Hockey by EA on the Genesis is by far and away my favorite. Still to this day it's fun to play 1 or 2 player.

Is that who it is? High-pitched whistle that borders on a level that only dogs can hear it and Hansen, two great sounds that are exactly alike.

Not that Hanson, you philistine. The Hanson Brothers from Slap Shot, the greatest hockey film ever made.When I sold my NES, the buyer bought it specifically to play Blades of Steel. He didn't want any of the other games, and he didn't want the system without BoS.

How could this not be a great game? I mean, it's part of the classic Konami lineup. Back in the NES days when the company shat solid gold 24/7. Goonies 2, Contra, Castlevania, Gradius, TMNT games and Metal Gear...Blades Of Steel is in good company.

I remember hating sports as a kid, but loving this game. In fact I didn't find another hockey game that got my blood pumping as much until the glorious Mutant League Hockey was released for Genesis.

There's something to be said for these ultraUNrealistic sports games that is lost with the current generation of games.. As mentioned previously, BaseWars is another game in the same vain as BoS.. No umpires.. It was a battle between robots to determine outs!

Blades is one of the better examples of the "gameplay first" school of design. Strip out all the crap -- all of it! -- and completely perfect a core control and execution mechanic that is so simple it becomes subtle.

Its the same Zen philosophy that makes SMB1 or N+ amazing. Imagine someone pitching SMB1 these days: "Your guy can, um, run and he can um, jump." "And?" "There is no and." The pitch would be shot down in a moment. And in a nutshell, that's why there has been a massive upswing of consumer consciousness and desire for both independent games development and physics-based games (like Angry Birds). Such games are seen as innovative at the same time they are a throwback to the principles Blades perfected back in 1988.

Readers should note, hambone's positive recollection of the game may be influenced by a disproportionately long string of victories - a record that may have been achieved partly through the (now largely deprecated) tactic of "unplugging the other guy's controller at critical moments.”

Readers should note, hambone's positive recollection of the game may be influenced by a disproportionately long string of victories - a record that may have been achieved partly through the (now largely deprecated) tactic of "unplugging the other guy's controller at critical moments.”

I haven't owned a console since the N64. I had completely forgotten about that tactic! Wow, did that start some fights when I was younger. I kicked the crap out of my buddy like 8 times in a row one afternoon in Mortal Kombat, and he was finally on the verge of beating me. All of the sudden he couldn't block or move, he looks down and saw I pulled out his controller... oh, it was sweet. I got punched for it, but it was worth it, to sustain my run of victories and obvious superioirity over him.

Readers should note, hambone's positive recollection of the game may be influenced by a disproportionately long string of victories - a record that may have been achieved partly through the (now largely deprecated) tactic of "unplugging the other guy's controller at critical moments.”

other tactics of note,only pontificate on games you are good at.claim Y button shoots when asked, even though you know its X.